


The Trophy-hunters

by Hyarrowen



Category: Biggles Series - W. E. Johns
Genre: Action/Adventure, Flying, Gen, Manfred von Richthofen walk-on, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24136366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyarrowen/pseuds/Hyarrowen
Summary: The friendly rivalry between 266 and 287 Squadrons is beginning to getreallyout of hand.
Relationships: James "Biggles" Bigglesworth & Algy Lacey
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	The Trophy-hunters

287 Squadron’s surprise party had hit a crescendo. Someone at the Mess piano was hammering out ragtime, the air was thick with cigarette smoke, and the drink was flowing freely.

“Strewth!” groused Biggles to Algy. “I’d rather be five thousand feet over the Lines when there’s a push on. I’d rather be in the middle of an artillery barrage. I’m getting old – I can’t take this sort of thing anymore.”

“They’ve got something they’re holding back,” said Algy knowledgeably, in a kind of muted shout. “I know that look on Wilks’ face – he doesn’t let on when he’s around you, but he lets things slip around me. Brace yourself. I don’t think they can hold it in much longer.”

Biggles peered through the smoke. Yes, 287 Squadron as a whole was looking unusually smug. He started at a tap on his shoulder. There was Wilks, grinning at him, at point-blank range.

Biggles’ frosty glare had no effect on Wilks. “I expect you 266 types will want to get back to Maranique soon!” shouted the SE5 pilot. A large gesture with a pint mug nearly swamped Biggles’ uniform. “We won’t keep you long. We know you need your beauty sleep – not that it does much good - ”

A chorus of cheers from the 287 pilots greeted this sally.

“But we’ve got one last thing to show you!” He gestured at the pianist, who crashed out a series of chords signifying an announcement. Silence fell, except for a few giggles and titters.

“While you lot were having a lie-in this morning, we were up and fighting the Hun, and doing our duty for King and country. And look what we brought back with us!”

From the door at the end of the Mess emerged Ludgate and Parker of 287, both grinning – and between them they held a rudder. An almost-circular rudder, bearing a large black cross. That was common enough trophy. Similar trophies decorated the mess at 266. What made this one different was that it was blood-red.

“You’ve never shot down the Red Baron,” gasped Mahoney, into the awed silence that followed.

“No, they haven’t,” said Biggles loudly. “We’d’ve heard if they had. The entire Western Front would know by now.”

All the 266 pilots relaxed, and turned to look at Wilks, like spectators at a tennis-match.

“You’re no fun,” complained Wilks. “All right, we didn’t shoot him down. But we got one of his Jasta. Not Lothar either, since you ask - ”

“I didn’t ask,” replied Biggles coldly. “What did you do with the poor blighter? Is he dead? If not, he should be here for the party.”

“He’s in hospital. A bit knocked about, a bullet or two in him, but that’s all. He’ll be fine! But we wanted to show you the evidence. You don’t often see a Triplane over this side of the Lines. We thought you’d like to see what one looks like. Since you haven’t got one of your own.”

A chorus of derisive groans of sympathy from 287 filled the air. Biggles and his fellow flight-commanders, Mahoney and McLaren, exchanged glances. This was war.

-x-

In the dark, bouncing Crossley tender on the way back to Maranique, they laid their plans.

“If the Circus is coming over the Lines, it should be easy enough,” averred MacLaren.

“No, they’ll stay on their side now. They’d rather wait for us to come to them, and I don’t blame them.” Mahoney was bitter. It was a sore point that it was usually the RFC that crossed over into enemy-held territory.

“There’s only one thing for it. Four patrols a day, until we’ve cut one out and got him over the lines,” stated Biggles, to groans all round. “Well, if you’ve got a better idea, let’s hear it!”

No-one had a better idea. Four patrols a day it was.

-x-

Major Mullen, who knew his pilots all too well, simply said, “Don’t go overboard. I know 287 are being annoying, but I’d rather have you all come back than not. Don’t go shooting up Douai aerodrome just to provoke them. You don’t want to stir up a hornet’s nest.”

The three flight-commanders blithely assured him that they would do no such thing, and since their score steadily mounted over the next three days, and since shooting down Huns was, after all, their duty, Mullen did not put his foot down.

By the end of the fourth day, though, they were getting very tired, and enthusiasm was definitely waning. Late in the afternoon, Biggles trudged out to the apron where his Camel was waiting, feeling as drained he had done on many a “push” in the past, and wondering what he was playing at. He clambered up into the cockpit. Smyth, his mechanic, swung the propeller, the engine roared, and the ground crew let go his wing-tips. Algy and Harcourt followed him into the evening air.

He set a course for the Lines, visible in the misty distance by the occasional flash of the guns. Below him, the world sank away into cold gloom. The sky was still light, but the eastern horizon was turning darker. Biggles settled lower in his cockpit, and took a glance around. There were Algy and Harcourt. All was well - but they wouldn’t have long to complete this patrol.

Within ten minutes they were approaching the Lines. Ahead, a line of blossoming crimson showed where the anti-aircraft gunners were doing their work – futile, as was most of this war. A couple of minutes later, he spotted their targets – a flight of FE night-bombers, 100 Squadron probably, heading on a raid deep into enemy territory. He sat up to check that they were not in need of assistance – by now he could just make out the observers leaning on their gun-mountings - and one of them waved at him cheerily. He waved back, and continued on his course.

Whoof – whoof -whoof – “Strewth! That one was a bit close,” he muttered, as his Camel rocked in an unusually accurate blast of archie. The hot sulphur smell washed over him, and was gone, dispersed by his propeller - and then they were out of range of the guns and boring on into the gathering dusk. Below, the flat fields of northern France were obscured by the early spring mist, but up here, the air was clear, and very cold. He hitched up his scarf a little way, peered over the side of his cockpit for landmarks, and spotted a tall spire that poked out of the mirk. Not far to Douai now. He tilted his wings, and picked up the course of a river by the thicker mist that hovered over it.

Tiny flashes away to the north caught his attention. He stared through narrowed eyes at the pin-pricks of light, and it was only because he banked to change course again that he did not die a moment later. Something came down at him like a hawk, guns flashing. “Holy smoke. I was nearly caught napping!” He flung the Camel round in its famous right-hand turn, and caught a glimpse of sunset light flashing off the top planes of a machine – a Triplane - that had dived past him, and was climbing again, fast as a monkey, to meet him. Tracer streamed past him from above. He zoomed into a half loop and rolled off the top of it. Three more Triplanes scattered as he flung his Camel among them. There was Algy above him, his wheels nearly grazing Biggles’ top plane as he charged across the circle of Triplanes that had formed a hundred feet over his head. Biggles caught a glimpse of Harcourt, smoke trailing, still firing at the Triplane that had almost reached them from below. Biggles spared a moment to wave savagely at him – “Get back home, you idiot!” and saw Harcourt turn his nose to the west. Now it was up to him and Algy to make sure he got there.

Biggles flung himself against the direction of the tightening circle. His lips parted in his fighting smile as he took one machine in his sights and fired off a burst. The flashes of his tracer raked it from propeller to fuselage, and the machine jerked upwards. He turned his attention to the other Triplanes. Where was Algy?

Something hit his engine and it coughed and caught again, then spluttered once more. The three Huns gathered above him. The circle drew tight.  
Biggles spun, pulled out, spun in the opposite direction and pulled out again. At the end of the third spin, he was getting light-headed, but he had lost several thousand feet and the Tripehounds were no longer on his tail. He flattened out for a moment, and that was his undoing. Something scored his left shoulder like a hot iron, causing him to flinch over to the right – and that saved him from further injury as his instrument-board flew to pieces. Oil began to spray over him from the engine. Desperately he tried the controls – joystick, rudder – they both worked still. “Thank goodness. I don’t want to go full-tilt into the ground,” he muttered, and then forgot everything else but the need to land, or at least crash-land, safely.

He snatched a glance over the cockpit’s rim, and in the gloom he could just make out a handy empty field with a scatter of woodland and what looked like a morass of wetlands to one side. That would do. He flattened out, cut the engine and hunched down in his seat while trying to keep a sharp lookout. The Camel lost flying speed. He glanced up for a second, wondering what had happened to the other machines. He saw a few lines of tracer showing the continuing fight far above – where was Algy, was he all right? He must be; Biggles was a sitting duck but no-one had delivered the _coup-de-grâce_ yet. Algy must be watching his tail. Biggles knew he must make good use of this protection and land as quickly as possible. The song of the wind over the wires of his machine died away, he was over the boundary hedge of the field, and the ground was coming up towards him.

Bounce – bounce – crash as the undercarriage gave way. The Camel splintered into kindling around him. No sooner had it skidded to a halt than he was freeing himself from the webbing of his harness, grabbing at his maps, and piling out of the remains of the cockpit. He paused to work his cigarette-lighter and throw it into the wreckage, then went at a stumbling run towards the nearest patch of woodland.

Turning round in its shelter, he watched the brief funeral pyre. “Poor old bus,” he muttered to himself. Then he forgot his own machine as another Camel came into land a couple of fields away. It must have spun down after Biggles. “Algy! Get home, you blithering idiot!”

He burst through the nearby hedge and almost collided with Algy halfway across the intervening field. “What in the name of thunder do you think you’re doing?” snarled Biggles, the strain of the crash evident in his voice.

“I might ask you the same thing,” said Algy coldly. “You should be in hiding by now. But since you’re not, you can give me a hand with the bus. Get her under cover, now.”

They each took a wing-root and trundled the machine under the eaves of the wood. “What’s going on?” enquired Biggles. “The place should be crawling with Huns by now.”

“The Huns are busy,” said Algy, and Biggles could tell he was grinning, even though here in the woodland there was almost no light. “I saw a bombing raid starting as you were going down – that’s why I got away, the Tripes all went after the bombers like wasps at a picnic. Must’ve been those FEs we saw earlier. If we lie low, we can wait out the dark and get going at first light.”

-x-

They spent an uncomfortable night in the chilly woodland, very glad of their flying-gear, and dozing by turns. After what seemed like an interminable time, but was six hours at most, the first bird piped up in the springtime foliage above them.

Biggles cracked open an eyelid, and struggled to a sitting position. “I need a cigarette,” he muttered, rasping a hand over his chin. Then he winced as the bullet-crease caught at his shoulder.

“You’ll have to do without,” said Algy. “We can’t risk anyone coming to see what the tobacco smoke is all about."

Biggles grunted, and felt about in his pockets. “I’ve got biscuits,” he said. “What about you?"

“Chocolate,” said Algy. They partook of this light breakfast while the light slowly grew in the sky. Soon it would be light enough to attempt a take-off in the rough field close by; but until Algy could see his way clear, they couldn’t risk taxying a heavily-laden scout on such a poor surface. Biggles munched away, eyeing the spring woodland around them with disfavour. Celandines, wood anemones and wild violets alike left him unmoved.

Suddenly he sat upright, and pointed like a dog, towards the north, where there came the sound of gunfire.

“Hello, the Hun’s up early!”

They crept to the edge of the woodland and peered out. There was an archie barrage starting up there, the black clouds of German guns blossoming out around a flight of machines, showing small as minnows against the dawn sky.

“Poor devils,” muttered Biggles. “I’m glad it’s them, not me. Well, we’d better see about getting the bus out and ready to go.”

The Camel was well hidden among the leafy trees of the woodland edge. They manoeuvred it round, taking care not to rip the fabric as they did so. Algy hopped up into the cockpit and began flicking switches.

“Yes, it’s all OK,” he affirmed - “Hello, what’s that?”

It was the sound of an aircraft, getting rapidly louder. The two airmen exhcanged glances. They knew what that engine-note meant. Biggles ran to the edge of the wood and peered out, Algy at his shoulder. A few hundred yards away, a machine was approaching the ground, trailing smoke, one of its wings on fire. It was moving fast enough that the flames could not catch hold, but it was plain that it would crash within seconds.

“An RE8,” Biggles breathed. “Poor blighters. Come on!”

The airmen ran along the edge of the wood, their own predicament forgotten. The RE8 struck the ground with a splintering crash a couple of hundred yards away. A plume of oily smoke arose into the morning air.

But before they had covered more than half the distance, they were brought up short by the arrival, along a sunken lane which they had not noticed before, of a large staff car.

“That’s torn it!” exclaimed Biggles peering cautiously through the hedge. There were four men and a large dog in the car – too many for them to take on at once – and if they did, where could they go? The only way back across the Lines was by air. They retreated to the shelter of a spinney, watching in trepidation while the men left the car and hurried to the scene of the crash.

Biggles nudged Algy. “Do you see who that is?” he asked incredulously.

One of the men was fair-haired, wearing an old black flying-jacket, and was small and slightly-built, like Biggles himself. Algy peered, and muttered, “Strewth! It can’t be! What’s the Red Baron doing here?”

“We know he’s been injured. Maybe he’s taking it easy this morning. Watching his lads from the ground.”

The dog turned its head towards the two watchers. Biggles froze. It took a couple of paces forward – but then von Richthofen called, “Moritz! _Hier!”_ and it swung away and trotted obediently after its master.

The Camel pilots stood half upright, watching as the group of Germans reached the stricken aircraft. Biggles un-holstered his revolver. “If he harms those lads, I’m going to take a pot shot at him, whether he’s expecting it or no,” he stated. Algy was beside him, revolver likewise at the ready. Then both of them lowered their weapons, identical expressions of surprise on their faces. Richthofen had run up towards the wrecked machine. The pilot and observer were waiting a little distance from it with their hands up, apparently realising that they could not fight this posse of their enemies. There were a few moments of tense parlay. Then Richthofen holstered his pistol, strode up to them, and shook each by the hand. The tension drained out of the scene, and although the Britishers seemed to be shocked and wary still, they went with their captors willingly enough. One of the soldiers, at a gesture from Richthofen, cut the identification number from the uncharred side of the RE8 and rolled it up, as a trophy for the man who had shot it down. Then whole party turned back towards the car.

“Well, that’s that,” said Biggles. “We can’t shoot him now. He’ll be taking them back to Douai, and they’ll have to sit through a party in their honour. I don’t envy them that, not after a crash, it’s too much for one morning’s work. Hey, where are you going?”

For Algy had left the shelter of the copse. He scrambled into the sunken lane and raced towards the car. He jumped up onto the running-board and rummaged inside for a moment. Then he emerged, stuffing something into the pocket of his flying-jacket, and ran back to Biggles, triumph written all over his freckled face. “Come on, what are you waiting for? Back to the Camel!”

They raced along the hedge, Biggles muttering to himself about people who _would_ go on solo missions, and regained the shelter of the wood.

“What have you got there?” demanded Biggles.

“Never you mind,” panted Algy, grinning.

They waited, crouched down among the hazel bushes just inside the wood, while the car started and drove off. The sun was rising, long beams of light slanting between the tree-trunks. The chorus of birds was deafening. Biggles regarded the tree-tops with a jaundiced eye. “Worse than the morning barrage over the Lines in a push,” he stated. “Come on, let’s get out of this.”

They each took hold of a wing and trundled the machine out into the open field. Then Biggles jogged over the grass, looking for rabbit-holes, while Algy scrambled up into his cockpit and checked over the instrument-board. Biggles, returning, stood by the propeller and turned it one-handed. “Contact!” he sang out.

“Contact!”

The engine roared into life. Biggles ducked under the lower wing, clambered on top of it, and wriggled into the harness of webbing that they’d rigged up for him. The Camel was already moving. Even with two passengers, the machine was only slightly more heavily-laden than if it had had a full load of Cooper bombs, and they took off into the morning with a normal-length run, the vibrations suddenly ceasing as the wheels left the ground, just brushing the top of a young elm tree in the further hedge.

“Strewth. Did you have to do that?” yelled Biggles at Algy, who merely grinned at him, and settled down to a hedge-hopping dash for the Lines. Biggles resisted the urge to close his eyes as cottages, church steeples and barns sprang forward at him and rushed under the wing. They were travelling at over a hundred miles an hour, and would be over the Lines in ten minutes – and what would happen then?

He craned his neck round, buffeted by the slipstream, trying to keep an eye above and behind them. With the sun in that exact position, they could expect any attack to come from that quarter. He caught a glimpse of a couple of black dots falling out of the glare, and thumped the side of the fuselage with his forearm. “Huns!”

Algy nodded grimly and the Camel began to slew from one side to the other. Biggles crouched down over the leading edge of the wing. Ahead, the Lines were approaching – he could see the barrage balloons and bursts of archie. He snatched another glance over his shoulder. There were now half a dozen specks in the sky above and behind them – and instead of pouncing on the lone Camel, they were milling about like minnows in a pool.

He thumped on the fuselage again. “Dogfight!” he yelled, jerking his thumb behind them. Algy nodded and put his nose down still further. Biggles yelped as they dodged between two tall haystacks. Then they were over the reserve lines, and seemingly every man in the German Army was shooting at them. Algy’s machine guns began to chatter. Biggles gritted his teeth as bullets stitched a line through the fabric not six feet away – then suddenly everything went quiet and the German soldiers were diving for cover.

“That’s not because of us, surely?” wondered Biggles. He looked up, down and around as he searched for the cause of their reprieve. Then a shadow fell over them, and looking up and behind, he saw three SE5s not a hundred yards behind and above them – and recognised Wilks’ machine in the lead. They were covering the Camel’s return. Biggles grinned, raised a thumb, and settled down to look ahead. “You may be annoying, Wilks, but you’re a good man in a crisis!” he thought, as they swept between two barrage balloon lines, the gunners all having taken cover, and shot over the narrow churned-up band of the Lines. Seconds later, they were over the Allied trenches, with the Tommies cheering and waving as they roared over them, crossed the reserve areas, and were almost home. Biggles relaxed.

A burst of hot oil hit him in the face. He wiped it off his goggles indignantly, and craned his neck to see what Algy was doing. He was peering forward at the instrument-board, then down at the ground beneath – they were passing over a large railway siding, no place to land there, and there were brick-works beyond. Biggles glanced behind. They were trailing a long cloud of black smoke.

“Holy mackerel, we’d almost made it,” he muttered resentfully. “Looks like we’re going to crash – hello, what’s this?”

Wilks’ machine had swung into close formation beside them. Wilks was gesticulating urgently ahead and a little to the right. Algy started at him for a moment, then the Camel went over a small wood, and on the updraft of air from it, they lifted very slightly and Biggles could see the familiar landscape around 287 Squadron’s aerodrome. Algy cut the engine, the plume of smoke they were trailing died away, and they began the glide towards 287. Even if they didn’t make it, they were close enough now to get all the help they needed.

They were moving just above stalling speed now, the wind thrumming through the struts and wires around Biggles. A shadow fell across the Camel – one of the SE5s watching their tail as the sun climbed higher above the horizon. Wilks grinned encouragingly, gave them the thumbs-up, and lifted up and to the left to complete the escort cover. They left a church tower on their left, a windmill on their right, and the hedge surrounding 287 came into view. Biggles held his breath as the Camel’s wheels almost brushed it – then they were over the smooth grass of the aerodrome and Algy put the nose down very slightly. The Camel touched down heavily with not a suspicion of a bounce and rolled to a shuddering halt.

Neither Biggles nor Algy wasted a moment. They were on the ground and running like hares seconds later, and only paused when they were a good hundred yards away. A fire tender from the squadron building swept past them, and men piled off it, unrolling the hose and playing water on the smoking engine before the machine guns could start firing in the heat. The two airmen looked at each other and slumped in relief.

“We made it. Again,” observed Biggles. “Good show, Algernon Montgomery.”

Algy gave him a weak grin, they clapped each other on the back, and started to make their way to the landing-strip where the SE5s were now all on the ground.

“The lengths some people will go to, to get a decent breakfast!” was Wilks’ greeting. “Come on, we’ll see what the mess can rustle up for you.”

Biggles and Algy went into the squadron office to let 266 know that they were safe and well, if a little battered, and to telephone Wing Headquarters and report the downing of the RE8. The details they passed on of the airmen’s capture brought a groan from the officer at Wing. “So the Baron’s back on his feet again, is he? All right, thanks for the warning. At least he treated those poor chaps decently.”

That done, they stopped off to let the MO look at Biggles’ shoulder, conferred for a few moments, and then made their entry into the mess. Under its raftered roof, complete with trophies of 287’s victories including the red tail-fin of the Triplane, they consumed porridge and bacon, coffee and toast and marmalade.

At the end of the repast, Biggles and Algy looked at each other and nodded. Wilks saw this nod and misconstrued it.

“Well, chaps, you’ll be wanting to get back home. We’ll send your Camel along when it’s repaired. And if there’s any other little job we can do for you – keeping the Huns off your tail, shooting down Triplanes, don’t hesitate to let us know!”

Biggles stood up and stretched his back so it cracked, Algy at his side. “Thanks, old fellow. We appreciate it very much. So much, in fact, that we’ll give you a look at a little something that we brought back with us as a trophy of our own.”

Algy was looking even more cheerful than usual. He was, in fact, grinning. “The Baron might have a bit of trouble finding you, since you normally fly so high.” Groans and whistles from the assembled SE5 pilots; they did indeed usually fly high. “And of course, he’ll be missing these, right at this moment.”

He dug into the pocket of his flying-jacket, and brought out a pair of binoculars in a battered leather case. “German binoculars, you might note,” he said. “I lifted them from his car while he was picking up our chaps. Guess who they belong to?”

He passed round the binoculars case. Inside the lid, clearly marked in Gothic lettering, was the name of Manfred von Richthofen.


End file.
